Blind girl’s A-level joy

12:10pm Friday 15th August 2008

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A BLIND pupil at a York secondary school has overcome adversity to gain three grade As and a B in her A-levels.

The extraordinary achievement of Kelly Cronin was the talk of Huntington School in York yesterday as she joined her classmates picking up their A-level results from school.

Kelly, of Huntington, who is registered blind, has now won a place at the University of York to study English literature.

Furthermore, Kelly was awarded one of the top five marks in the country in psychology A-level.

Kelly has a guide dog called Holly, who has been in school for the last year with Kelly. Throughout her A-levels Kelly has been supported by Debs Walker, one of Huntington’s teaching assistants who has produced all Kelly’s texts in Braille.

The pass rate at the school was 98.3 per cent at grades A to E and 50 per cent of pupils got A and B grades with the percentage of A grades at 27 per cent, its best by some margin.

Pupil Eliot Clark attained a staggering six As while Daniel Bean, Robert Benest, Simon Docherty and Chloe Fawcett all attained 5 As.

Head teacher, Tom Tomsett, paid tribute to the hard work of pupils at the school.

He said: “These results reflect the hard work of our students and the dedication of Huntington School’s staff. Anyone who claims that standards have dropped cannot have been in a school recently to see first-hand the excellent attitudes of our students and the high quality of A-level provision.”

Richard Tither, director of sixth form said: “Kelly Cronin’s success, for instance, has been remarkable. Her story shows that determination, hard work and resilience are as important as anything else to be successful in life.”

At St Peter’s private school in York the results showed that pupils are bucking the trend for Science Subjects.

It has delivered an excellent set of A-level results with the highest results ever at AS-level.

One pupil scooped a national Edexcel top ten award in A-level biology with full marks. Overall at A-level pupils achieved 52 per cent at grade A and 81 per cent at A and B grades.

In a week when the Government and CBI continue to raise concerns about the availability of STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and maths), a high percentage of St Peter’s pupils opted to take what are now recognised as the more difficult science subjects.

Results in these subjects were impressive with 91 per cent A and B grades for maths, 89 per cent for biology, 73 per cent chemistry, 71 per cent physics and 100 per cent achieving grade A in further maths.

In North Yorkshire at Tadcaster Grammar School 26 per cent of students got A grades, 29 per cent got B grades and 25 per cent got a C grade.